This patent application relates generally to interconnection systems, such as those including electrical connectors, used to interconnect electronic assemblies.
Electrical connectors are used in many electronic systems. It is generally easier and more cost effective to manufacture a system as separate electronic assemblies, such as printed circuit boards (“PCBs”), which may be joined together with electrical connectors. A known arrangement for joining several printed circuit boards is to have one printed circuit board serve as a backplane. Other printed circuit boards, called “daughterboards” or “daughtercards,” may be connected through the backplane.
A known backplane is a printed circuit board onto which many connectors may be mounted. Conducting traces in the backplane may be electrically connected to signal conductors in the connectors so that signals may be routed between the connectors. Daughtercards may also have connectors mounted thereon. The connectors mounted on a daughtercard may be plugged into the connectors mounted on the backplane. In this way, signals may be routed among the daughtercards through the backplane. The daughtercards may plug into the backplane at a right angle. The connectors used for these applications may therefore include a right angle bend and are often called “right angle connectors.”
Connectors may also be used in other configurations for interconnecting printed circuit boards. Some systems use a midplane configuration. Similar to a backplane, a midplane has connectors mounted on one surface that are interconnected by conductive traces within the midplane. The midplane additionally has connectors mounted on a second side so that daughter cards are inserted into both sides of the midplane.
The daughter cards inserted from opposite sides of the midplane often have orthogonal orientations. This orientation positions one edge of each printed circuit board adjacent the edge of every board inserted into the opposite side of the midplane. The traces in within the midplane connecting the boards on one side of the miplane to boards on the other side of the midplane can be short, leading to desirable signal integrity properties.
A variation on the midplane configuration is called “direct attach.” In this configuration, daughter cards are inserted from opposite sides of the system. These boards likewise are oriented orthogonally so that the edge of a board inserted from one side of the system is adjacent to the edges of the boards inserted from the opposite side of the system. These daughter cards also have connectors. However, rather than plug into connectors on a midplane, the connectors on each daughter card plug directly into connectors on printed circuit boards inserted from the opposite side of the system.
Connectors for this configuration are sometimes called orthogonal connectors. Examples of orthogonal connectors are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,354,274, 7,331,830, 8,678,860, 8,057,267 and 8,251,745.
Other connector configurations are also known. For example, a RAM connector is sometimes included a connector product family in which a daughter card connector has a mating interface with receptacles. The RAM connector might have a mating interface with mating contact elements that are complementary to and mate with receptacles. For example, a RAM might have mating interface with pins or blades or other mating contacts that might be used in a backplane connector. A RAM connector might be mounted near an edge of a daughter card and receive a daughter card connector mounted to another daughter card. Alternatively, a cable connector might be plugged into the RAM connector.